The present invention relates to a cooling fan shroud for a vehicle, and more particularly to a cooling fan shroud having a movable portion to assist installation within a vehicle engine compartment.
Vehicles with liquid cooled engines typically include an engine cooling system which mount an engine cooling heat exchanger (radiator) at the front of the engine compartment, just behind the bumper and grille, so as to take advantage of the ram air effect at higher vehicle speeds. At lower vehicle speeds, an engine cooling fan draws air through the radiator. The fan is generally mounted to a support shroud that both physically secures the fan to the radiator, and which also surrounds the fan to confine and direct air through the radiator.
The design of these engine cooling systems is often constrained by flow and thermal requirements, design of related systems and equipment, and size and space constraints within the engine compartment. Installation of the cooling fan shroud may be relatively difficult to achieve in a manufacturing environment. As such, conventional cooling fan shrouds are often manufactured of multiple portions. The fan shroud portions are separately inserted around previously installed components within the engine compartment then assembled together therein.
Although effective, conventional multi-portion fan shrouds result in an increase in the labor required during assembly. The fan shroud portions must also be assembled together within the engine compartment which may be difficult due to space constraints which are further limited once the fan shroud portions are located in the engine compartment. Moreover, additional inventory control may be required to assure that each portion is available during the assembly process.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a cooling fan shroud that is readily assembled into an assembly compartment yet avoids final assembly of multiple fan portions therein.